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Oil Change International says plans do not stand up to scrutiny and describes US fossil-fuel corporations as ‘the worst of the worst’
Major oil companies have in recent years made splashy climate pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and take on the climate crisis, but a new report suggests those plans do not stand up to scrutiny.
The research and advocacy group Oil Change International examined climate plans from the eight largest US- and European-based international oil and gas producers – BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – and found none were compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a threshold scientists have long warned could have dire consequences if breached.
This story has been updated to add comments from Shell, Eni and Equinor.
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‘Critical slowing down’ of recovery raises concern over forest’s resilience to ecosystem collapse
More than a third of the Amazon rainforest is struggling to recover from drought, according to a new study that warns of a “critical slowing down” of this globally important ecosystem.
The signs of weakening resilience raise concerns that the world’s greatest tropical forest – and biggest terrestrial carbon sink – is degrading towards a point of no return.
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In 2010, Mexico led the way, followed by Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia
Candy lines every inch of the mercado de dulces in Mexico City’s historic center. Tantalizing strawberry-flavored chocolates and Tajín-covered mango gummies pack the narrow aisles of the meandering marketplace. But many of the colorful packages are somewhat dampened by black stop signs printed on their fronts. Alongside dreamy descriptions of creamy and chocolatey confections, the stop signs warn “Excess calories” or “Excess sugars”. For some customers, the warnings are enough for them to pause and reconsider their purchases.
Latin America is leading the world in a movement to print nutritional warning labels on the fronts of food packages. Currently, the labels warn when a food product exceeds a consumer’s daily recommended value of any “nutrient of concern” – namely, sugar, salt or saturated fat (some countries have added trans fats, artificial sweeteners and caffeine). But research led by scientists across the continent is increasingly pointing towards another factor consumers may want to consider: how processed a food is.
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Inverbervie, on the north-east coast of Scotland, faces an existential threat, with storms carving away metres of shoreline. Can anything be done to save what is left?
A decade ago, on my friend’s birthday, we took a huge tent and stayed the night at our local campsite. We laughed as we put the tent up where the grass met the shingle beach, the sunshine glistening on the water, the sound of the waves scraping the stones. I remember a night of ghost stories, teenage gossip and chasing each other with seaweed.
But the land where we pitched our tent is no longer there. It’s somewhere in the North Sea.
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‘Catastrophic’ global decline due to dams, mining, diverting water and pollution threatens humans and ecosystems, study warns
Migratory fish populations have crashed by more than 80% since 1970, new findings show.
Populations are declining in all regions of the world, but it is happening fastest in South America and the Caribbean, where abundance of these species has dropped by 91% over the past 50 years.
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Species, with only a few dozen seen by humans since first discovered, usually lives in darkness up to 3,300ft below sea level
Oregon beachgoers stumbled across a rare find over the weekend, after a deep-sea anglerfish washed up from the ocean depths.
The discovery marked the first time this creature, which typically dwells in the darkness up to 3,300ft below sea level, was seen on Oregon shores according to the local Seaside Aquarium, which posted about it on Facebook.
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To understand why some Olympians would go into bat for the mining magnate on a matter unrelated to the pool, one need only look at the financial hold she has over the sport
Many things have been said about Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest person, and not all of them positive. But in the world of Australian swimming, superlatives comes thick and fast. According to Cate Campbell, a four-time Olympic gold medallist, Rinehart “saved swimming”. Her sister, fellow Olympian Bronte Campbell, describes the billionaire as a “unique patron”. To Swimming Queensland’s chief executive, Kevin Hasemann, Rinehart is Australian sport’s greatest benefactor since “Santa Claus”.
And so the news that the Olympic gold medallist Kyle Chalmers and his colleagues had campaigned for Rinehart in relation to portraits she disliked by the artist Vincent Namatjira was not surprising, even if its timing – when all eyes are otherwise on preparations for Paris 2024 – was unexpected. To understand why Hasemann and some of Australia’s top swimmers would go into bat for Rinehart on a matter entirely unrelated to the pool, one need only look at the financial hold the mining magnate has over the sport.
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Communities around the Pueblo Viejo mine complain of serious health problems and a diminished environment and have spent years campaigning to be relocated
In the shadow of El Llagal, a tailings dam that holds waste from one of the world’s largest goldmines in the Dominican Republic, sits the home of Casilda Lima. The roof is corrugated iron and the walls are wood, painted pink and yellow. A sign reads “God bless this home”.
Outside,the 114-metre-tall grey wall of the dam looms large. Behind it lies a lake of waste from the mining process, where machinery and chemicals, along with a huge volume of water, are used to grind up rock to extract gold and silver. Many substances found in tailings are lethal, others are radioactive.
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- Read more from the My DIY Climate Hack, a new series on everyday people’s creative solutions to the climate crisis
Jim Gregory, 59, loves to cycle. More than a decade before the work-from-home revolution, the Iowa business owner was grappling with a conundrum now faced by many: how to stay active while spending so much of his day at the computer.
Jim wondered if he could combine the joy of cycling with a desire to reduce his energy consumption. Thus was born the PedalPC, a machine built from a repurposed bicycle trailer that generates enough electricity to run his computer, printer, phone chargers and home wifi.
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Jeff Bezos’s $10bn climate and biodiversity fund has garnered glittering prizes, but concerns have been voiced over the influence it can buy – and its interest in carbon offsets
Late last month, the coronation of Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sánchez as environmental royalty was complete. At Conservation International’s glitzy annual gala in New York, with Harrison Ford, Jacinda Ardern and Shailene Woodley looking on, the couple were given the global visionary award for the financial contribution of the Bezos Earth Fund to the natural world.
“Jeff and Lauren are making history, not just with the sum of their investment in nature but also the speed of it,” said the Conservation International CEO, Dr M Sanjayan, whose organisation received a $20m grant from Bezos in 2021 for its work in the tropical Andes.
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